Last Friday afternoon, in a hotel lounge in Midtown Manhattan, I saw what one of the world’s biggest tobacco companies says could be central to its growth in the coming years.

It wasn’t a cigarette as we know it—those products, deadly for their users and detested by regulators and health experts, are destined for a long and inevitable decline. And it wasn’t an electronic cigarette, the trendy new upstarts in the nicotine business.

Instead, it was a hybrid of the two—a black, cigarette-shaped tube containing a battery and electronics. Into one end of the tube, users plug what looks like a miniature cigarette, a couple of inches long, paper filled with real tobacco.

The user “lights” the cigarette by pressing a button, activating a mechanism that heats the tobacco to a temperature high enough to turn its nicotine into vapor, but not high enough to produce smoke.

If all goes to plan, they will be available in some test markets before the end of 2014, with a wider rollout next year.

“Reduced” risk is the key word here—there is no such thing as a safe way to inhale nicotine, the company acknowledges. And health campaigners, who have spent decades battling the tobacco industry, worry that new, less risky products like e-cigarettes will act as a Trojan horse, getting a new generation addicted to nicotine.

Regardless, the company, which sells Marlboro and other brands outside of the U.S., is making a big bet on this new breed of products. In January, it said it would invest up to 500 million euros ($688 million) in its first manufacturing facility to produce them, capable of making up to 30 billion units annually by 2016.

These kind of bets are particularly worth watching in the tobacco industry, whose core product is in long-term decline. Cigarettes kill their users by the millions and have turned their makers into corporate pariahs. In the long run, coming up with something new to sell is a matter of existential importance.

So when PMI’s Chief Executive André Calantzopoulos recently told investors that reduced-risk products are “our greatest growth opportunity in the years to come, which we believe has the very real potential to transform the industry,” he’s talking about a transformation from decline to growth.

PMI’s global sales volumes fell 5.1% in 2013, and sustained public health campaigns, combined with heavy taxes and marketing restrictions, means cigarette sales are unlikely to begin growing again in developed markets. If tobacco companies want to stay in business for the long term, it won’t be through cigarettes alone.

There’s still a long way to go before the growth Mr. Calantzopoulos is looking for can come true. The new devices don’t even have a name—“reduced risk product” may be a sensible term when dealing with vigilant regulators, but it isn’t going to work when selling to the public. What do you call something that isn’t an e-cigarette as we currently know them, but isn’t a regular cigarette either?

Once they come up with a name, selling to the public is an even trickier proposition. Not only will PMI need to convince regulators of any claim that the products are less dangerous than regular cigarettes, it will also need to get approval to promote them and explain how they work.

Right now, tobacco companies must tread carefully in speaking to the public, and cigarettes haven’t been advertised on TV since 1971. Electronic cigarettes, which contain no tobacco, have much more leeway in advertising and promotion.

Even with all that done, PMI must then convince smokers to give these new smoke-free gadgets a chance. Surveys in the U.S. and Europe have shown that while more than half of smokers have tried an e-cigarette, few convert. Such is the powerful appeal of smoking to its addicts.

A study released last month by France’s Observatory on Drugs and Addiction showed that while more than half of French smokers have tried an e-cigarette, just 3.3% went on to use them on a daily basis.

In trying to pull users toward something new, Big Tobacco will have to confront the very addiction it has spent decades creating.

It is not surprising, the Industry is in full time engaged in how to sustain the industry. So they have invented
another way. We as tobacco controllers must blame our selves for giving the opportunity and space for the Industry to do it.
In fact we are not doing our duty properly. what we are actually doing is something like eat the cake and have the cake, This wan' t do We need to be clear. tobacco is dangerous, it causes serious disease, as the Industry it self says, "we accept with the glamorous delight comes serious diseases" If so it cannot be sold in the open market, it should be restricted. May be to Pharmacies that is also on prescription
So why we don't dare do it. Why we engage in beating the bush spending a huge sum of money for no actual purpose. This FCTC is a "I do not know what I would say"
It is actually a negotiation. not with the general public but with the Industry. .

1:55 am March 11, 2014

Jon Krueger wrote:

Last time Big Tobacco had a "reduced harm" product it was filters, low-tar, and light.

How did that work out?

"the rise of the filter cigarette was more a marketing ploy than anything else" -- NOVA

"the tobacco industry continues to reassure smokers....by offering an illusion of safety" -- WHO

The industry was later of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, defrauding the public by deceptively marketing "light" cigarettes as safer when they weren't.

Do you trust Big Tobacco to help you with your health?

The only thing that says you'd be foolish to, is the entire history of the subject.

7:57 am March 5, 2014

Joe wrote:

"Surveys in the U.S. and Europe have shown that while more than half of smokers have tried an e-cigarette, few convert."

And yet millions are quiting cigarettes and millions are now vaping.
Something tells me these studies are a bit flawed.

While I am sure there are some, I have never met a vaper that wasn't a smoker beforehand. Yet they want us to believe that only 3.3% of the millions of vapers out there were former smokers? I think not.

7:10 am March 5, 2014

lapazjim wrote:

Looks like two things are happening here: 1)The states are loosing tax revenue from smokers and 2)Big tobacco companies are loosing monies.this is nothing but a way for both to regain their money flow!!!